A Fate Less Ill
by Mexx
Summary: Hermione receives her last piece of compassion from an unlikely source. R for sexual themes and dark undertones.


TITLE: A fate less ill.

AUTHOR: Mexx.

EMAIL: 

FANDOM: Harry Potter.

DISCLAIMER: All Harry Potter characters and theme depicted in this fic are property of JK Rowling. The quotes "Are you afraid of me?" followed by "Should I be?" are blatantly stolen from the rather drool-worthy film 'Troy'.

RATING: R for sexual themes and dark undertones.

SUMMARY: Hermione receives her last piece of compassion from an unlikely source.

--

The door to her room clicked shut, and she looked up from her knees, her interest piqued. She was oddly keen to see who had entered, yet reluctant to leave the protection that the shadows of the room provided for fear of giving this Death Eater the satisfaction of seeing her tear-stained face.

It was her own fault, really, Hermione had two days ago conceded. If she hadn't been foolish enough to go headlong into a battle she wasn't prepared for, maybe she wouldn't have been in the mess, locked in a room with a masked Death Eater with her fate in the hands of Voldemort.

The Death Eater; tall and slim, and shrouded black robes, stepped further into the room, and even in the gloom of the room she could recognise the shocking blonde hair. Nobody other than a Malfoy could have such an angelic halo of locks atop such a devilish face. Malfoy appeared not to have changed much in the sixth months since school had ended, but unlike her or Harry or Ron, he'd not been fighting a war. She assumed Malfoy had merely been conducting it while sitting at Voldemort's right hand.

"What do you want?" she snarled at him, trying to hide her fear underneath a cross façade.

Malfoy bit down on his lower lip momentarily, biting back a scathing retort. His eyes were certainly ablaze with anger, but he seemed to be quelling it for some reason. He regarded her for a moment, as if contemplating her fate, before shrugging nonchalantly. "I've come to help you."

"Help me?" she echoed disbelievingly, but inched out of the shadows of the room and closer to him.

Malfoy too shifted further closer to her, now standing in the middle of the room. "I hate you, Granger, but I don't hate anyone enough to let him do to you what he'll do if I don't intervene." Slowly, Malfoy began unbuttoning his robe.

"What are you doing?" Hermione shrieked, alarmed.

"Helping you," he repeated, watching her closely as he stepped out of his robe and began divesting himself of the rest of his clothing.

"Then help me get out of here, you prick!" she insisted, before covering her modest eyes with her hand as he removed the last of his clothing. "How is you being naked going to help me out of this predicament?"

Malfoy cocked and eyebrow, and looked at her in disbelief. He tried meeting her eyes, but they were still hidden beneath trembling fingertips. "You honestly believe that – even with my help – you're going to get out of this building alive?"

Hermione's hands dropped from her face, and she met his eyes defeated. Malfoy's arched eyebrow and bitter smile were all she needed to know he wasn't joking. Her gaze dropped, avoiding his penetrating eyes and immediately she blushed, her eyes coming in to contact with parts of Draco Malfoy she never expected to see. "But I don't see how..."

"He likes virgins." Malfoy spat out, and the bitter smile was gone, replaced with a disgusted frown. "The things he does to them—it's... there's no words for how foul it is. And it's not about magic, either. It's about pain; blood and torture and bruises. He's so infinitely twisted with his obsession for purity that he can damn well smell it, and he'll smell it on you. Mark my words, Granger, if you don't let me help you now you'll regret it in a few days when you won't be able to think about anything but the pain of it all. And there won't be anything left of you by the time he's finished."

Hermione's face was white by the time Malfoy finished his little tirade, and should she have been any other woman she might have been at a loss for words. "I thought—I mean, everyone assumed he was just a killer. I didn't know he..."

Hermione's eyes were bright, full of tears and anxiety, but Malfoy knew he had not gone far enough because she wasn't yet asking him to help her. And he would not help her unless she asked, because he refused to lower himself to the level of that bastard, murdering rapist.

"He's not just evil, Granger, he's bloody nuts, and there's no accounting for how far a man of his psychosis will go to hurt people. It's not just the blood and death he loves, it's the screams. And if you don't accept my offer now, soon enough he'll be shoving his dick so far down your throat that you'll be chocking on it, and you'll be screaming at him to fuck you or bleed you just so you can fucking breathe!

"And like I said, I don't hate anyone enough to let him do that to them. Let me help you."

Hermione trembled, slightly and backed onto the bed. "Did he do it to you... is that why you want to help me?"

Malfoy actually laughed at her inquiry, although it was somewhat more bitter than the laugh of the boy she recalled from school. "Of course not, you stupid girl. I found out what he was like when I was fourteen, and even though he wasn't even around at the time I wasn't willing to take any chances. Blaise and I saw to each other's safety behind the stables in father's manor."

"And here we all thought you were with Pansy..." Hermione said with almost a hint of a smile touching her lips.

Ignoring her remark, Malfoy stalked towards Hermione. His eyes were dark, piercing, like scorched diamonds. Hermione flinched slightly as Malfoy stood, naked, less than two feet away from her. Watching her closely, Malfoy asked, "Are you afraid of me, Granger?"

"Should I be?" she retorted, with a rage in her eyes that could almost match his.

Malfoy took a step closer so he was standing only a breath away from her. "I won't touch you, Granger. Not unless you ask me to."

Hermione's breath hitched. She was going to die, there was no question of that, but her old school nemesis was offering her a way to make it less painful. "And you'd do...y'know," she trailed off, tripping over her words, before continuing, "just to spare me that torture?"

"I won't fuck you unless you can say the word, Granger,"

Hermione's lips pursed in anger, and her eyes narrowed. Reasonably, she knew he was probably baiting her, but reason had long ago gone out of the window with any chance of escaping this prison. "Fine. Why would you fuck me, just to spare me that torture? You're evil."

"I'm a rich git more concerned with saving my own hide than world domination, I'm not evil," Malfoy argued, his tone annoyingly calm for someone nakedly proposing her losing her virginity to him in order to spare her unnecessary torture. "I really dislike the way you branded me as evil just because I didn't brown-nose Potter in first year, more to the point—"

"Ok," Hermione interrupted him.

"Ok, what?" asked Malfoy, clearly annoyed at having been interrupted.

Hermione blinked, her face white, tired, haggard and showing the signs of her worrying for her very life. "Ok. Fuck me. Spare me the worst of what he'll to do me."

"Are you sure?" Malfoy's face was pensive, and his gentlemanly behaviour could have made her, in another lifetime, fall in love with him. Instead, it only made her reply easier.

"Do it," she commanded, and disrobed. She stood in front of him, naked, with her heart pounding heavily beneath her naked breasts. "Fuck me."

Malfoy closed the distance between them and laid a soft kiss on Hermione's lips. She felt nothing more than a foggy sort of revulsion, but still, the romanticism of the situation was not lost on her. She kissed back, fighting against his mouth in a duel of teeth and tongues and soft, soft lips, and then gave her body, her virginity, and last shreds of hope to her childhood classroom nemesis.

--

The next morning she is thrown on a cold stone floor dressed in her torn robes, and mocked for the impurity of her blood and her body. She understands, in her last moments of life, that Malfoy really did save her from something worse than death. His cold, grey eyes, partially obscured by a mask, are the last thing she sees before another masked figure strikes her down, and in Malfoy's eyes she only sees distaste and not a shred of lingering compassion.


End file.
